Standard Form of National Characters

The Standard Form of National Characters or the Standard Typefaces for Chinese Characters^[1] (Chinese: 國字標準字體; pinyin: Guózì Biāozhǔn Zìtǐ) is the standardized form of Chinese characters set by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China (Taiwan).

Characteristics

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The Standard Form of National Characters tends to adopt orthodox variants for most of its characters, but it still adopts many common vulgar variants. Many have their components rearranged. For example:

• 群^[2] The orthodox form of this character has 君 above 羊, i.e. 羣.
• 峰^[3] The orthodox form of this character has 山 above 夆, i.e. 峯.
• 裡^[4] The orthodox form of this character has 里 inside 衣, i.e. 裏.

Other vulgar variants which are extremely common in handwriting have been adopted. For example:

• 為^[5] The orthodox form of this character is 爲 with the second and fourth strokes pointing out.
• 令^[6] The orthodox form of this character has 亼 above 卩, i.e. 令.

Some forms which were standardized have never been used or are extremely rare. For example:

• 寺^[7] Before this standard was created, the second horizontal stroke was almost always the longest, i.e. 寺.
• 有^[8]青^[9]能^[10] Whenever there is a radical resembling ⺼ or 月 under other components, most standards write the first stroke as a vertical stroke, e.g. the Mainland Chinese standard writes these characters as 有青能.

Some components are differentiated where most other standards do not differentiate. For example:

• 朠^[11]脈^[12] The radical on the left in 朠 is 月 (meaning "moon"), while the radical on the left in 脈 is ⺼ (a form of 肉, meaning "meat"). They are differentiated in that 月 has two horizontal strokes where ⺼ has two dots resembling 冫.
• 草^[13]夢^[14] The radical at the top of 草 is 艹, while the radical at the top of 夢 is 卝. They are differentiated in that the horizontal strokes of 卝 do not pass through the vertical strokes.
• 次冰 The radical on the left in 次 is 二, while the radical on the left in 冰 is 冫.
• 冬^[15]致^[16]瓊^[17] The radical on the top in 冬 is 夂, the radical on the right in 致 is 夊, and the radical on the bottom right of 瓊 is 攵.

This standard tends to follow a rule of writing regular script where there should be no more than one of ㇏ (called 捺), long horizontal stroke, or hook to the right (e.g. ㇂ ㇃) in a character.

• 樂^[18]業^[19]央^[20] The first horizontal stroke in these characters are long horizontal strokes. Therefore, the last stroke cannot be ㇏. Other standards use ㇏ as the last stroke, e.g. Mainland China (樂業央) and Japan (樂業央).
• 七^[21] This character has a long horizontal stroke, so it cannot have a hook to the right. Other standards do not follow this rule as closely, e.g. Mainland China (七) and Japan (七).

References